You Can Trust in Me (Man of Medan Fanfiction: Conrad X Female Reader)

Chapter Twelve: Facing Demons

(TW: N*0se mentioned and violence)

Relationships:

Alex- 3/10

Brad- 9/10

Conrad- 10/10

Fliss- 10/10

Julia- 4/10

Brad's POV

I wander around the ship, eventually finding a ladder down to an unfamiliar area. I use my flashlight to peer below, beckoning Fliss over with a wave of my hand. "Here, come check this out!"

Fliss walks over to me, using her lantern to help her look down into the darkness of this new space. 

"Look! Down there! Looks like the engine room," I tell her, pointing to the area in question.

"The generator should be down there, right?"

I nod in confirmation before getting on the ladder without another word, starting to climb down it before realizing that part of it is missing. "The ladder is broken off here." I glance down to see how far I am from the floor, visually judging the distance. "I think I can just..." 

"Wait!" Fliss worriedly tries to stop me, but before she can, I jump down the rest of the way, letting out a small grunt as my bare feet hit the cold metal floor. 

"Are you okay?" Fliss immediately asks me, peering down at where I've landed.

"Yeah..." I look up at her and clear my throat. "I'm all good. Just come down!"

Fliss gets on the ladder, climbing down it and jumping off once she reaches the broken off section. She lets out a grunt of her own when her feet hit the floor next to me. Fliss glances up at the broken ladder before giving me a nod, signalling to me that we can continue moving.

I start walking, jumping when a figure rushes past right in front of me. "Whoa, crap!"

"What is it?" Fliss asks, jumping slightly from my sudden reaction.

"That!" I point to where I saw the figure run by. "It-it w-was... didn't you see it?"

Fliss raises an eyebrow at me, glancing from me to the area I'm pointing. "Um... no."

I try to slow my racing heart as I gather my thoughts. "Okay, so I'm seeing things, but you're not. Okay, so... follow my thinking here." I start to move my hands around slightly as I speak, it helping me to articulate the inner workings of my mind. "We know the ship was carrying the 'Manchurian Gold,' but that was really some sort of hallucinogenic bio-weapon developed in China during World War Two. Y/N said she found the test results and you found the gold, which you said really wasn't gold at all. And, we know that this hallucinogen was super unstable, and leaked all over the ship. So maybe... it's still here? Maybe it hasn't dispersed over seventy years, and it's having the same effect on us? You know, paranoid hallucinations? Y/N also did say that it all should just be a hallucination. She must be right! All these crazy things we're seeing, none of it's real!"

Fliss nods slowly as she processes everything I've said. "The crew must've been hallucinating too! We know they were afraid of something, and the officers just thought that they were trying to get out of guard duty."

"This isn't a ghost ship at all. It's a floating bio-weapon."

"Does this have anything to do with the plane from the dive?" Fliss asks me.

I think for a moment, connecting all the dots in my head. "Okay, so the plane was a search and rescue. It came out here because the people on the ship sent a distress signal, we know that. But I guess at that point, the fog had... done its damage. And for whatever reason, they shot the plane down. I mean, who knows what they were thinking? Or thought they saw?"